Acton Beauchamp Littlebury’s Worcestershire Directory 1879

Acton Beauchamp is a romantic and beautiful parish on the western border of the county, adjoining Herefordshire, 4 miles S.E. of Bromyard, and 12 W.S.W. of Worcester; is in the western division of the county, Upper Doddingtree hundred, Bromyard union and county court district, Worcester petty sessional division, Suckley polling district, Worcester diocese and archdeaconry, and Powick rural deanery. The population in 1861 was 205, and in 1871, 221; inhabited houses, 45; families or separate occupiers, 53. The area of the parish is 1,518 acres; annual rateable value, £2,181. W. M. Sparrow, Esq., of Wolverhampton, is lord of the manor and principal landowner. The soil is heavy land, strong clay, loam, and sandy; hops much cultivated, with wheat, beans, and roots. The church, dedicated to St. Giles, is a small plain structure, with some late Norman work and a very low tower; it was rebuilt in 1816. the register commences in 1700. The rectory is valued at £290, with residence and 36 acres of glebe; patron and rector, the Rev. William Epworth Cowpland, B.A., Worcester College, Oxford, who was instituted in 1871. The tithes were commuted for £280. the new board school for the united district of Acton Beauchamp and Stanford Bishop has been erected from the designs of Ernest A. Day, Esq., architect, of Worcester, at a cost of £1,050. It was opened May 13th, 1878. Accommodation is provided for 80 children. The beautiful undulating woodland view from The Rectory, right across Herefordshire, especially in the direction of S.W., ending in the range of hills called the “Black Mountains,” is considered most enchanting. At Redmarley farm in this parish is an ancient farmhouse, in the garden of which is a periodical spring, called “The Roaring Water,” which bursts from a cavity called “Hunger Hole.” In the quarries of this parish geologists will find numerous remains of fishes, and at Pippin’s hill is a good exposure of cornstone interstratified with old sandstone. Some mineral springs are said to exist in the parish. In a sequestered dingle, called “Jumper’s Hole,” are marks in the sandstone, to which is attached the legend of St Catherine’s mare and colt.